America and Islam Go Way Back

by Philip Jenkins

Mr. Jenkins is a professor of History and Religious
Studies at Penn State University. Prof. Jenkins' books
include The Next Christianity: the Rise of Global
Christianity (Oxford, 2001) and Mystics and Messiahs: Cults
and New Religions in American History (Oxford, 2000). This
essay is based on his presentation at FPRI's History
Institute for Teachers on "The American Encounter with
Islam," May 3-4, 2003. Based on the conference, we also
published "Islam and the West," by Jeremy Black. The
remaining papers will be published in Orbis, Winter 2004
(due out January 2004).

Though most of us think of the American relationship with Islam as a modern phenomenon,
the encounter in fact goes back to the very first days of the nation. That encounter
was from its first a troubled affair and involves the origins of U.S. military
and diplomatic affairs. American conflicts with Muslim states in North Africa
provide the opening to Max Boot's fine analysis of The Savage Wars of Peace:
Small Wars and the Rise of American Power, and we all probably know a little
about "The Shores of Tripoli." We may not know that these events occasioned
the first draft of our national anthem. In response to these wars, around 1805,
Francis Scott Key composed a patriotic song that described how:

In the conflict resistless each toil they endured, 'Till their foes fled
dismayed from the war's desolation; And pale beamed the crescent, its splendor
obscured By the light of the star-spangled flag of our nation. Where each
radiant star gleamed a meteor of war, And the turbaned heads bowed to its
terrible glare, Now mixed with the olive the laurel shall wave, And form a
bright wreath for the brow of the brave.

The tune would become "The Star Spangled Banner."

In short, there is a long record of antipathy between
America and at least certain Muslim states, if not Islam
itself. Muslims in America have been trying for a long time
to make themselves recognized as fully American. Two years
ago, they thought they had achieved their greatest victory
when finally the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp with the
Arabic words for Eid Mubarak, "blessed holiday." In a case
of disastrous timing, the stamp came out on September 1,
2001. But the achievement of that stamp showed that Muslims
had the self-confidence to feel deserving of representation
as an American community. Politicians now routinely speak of
church, synagogue and mosque. It is ironic in light of
recent events that one of the great criticisms of the Bush
administration in its first few months was that it was too
closely tied to Muslim causes in this country.

In the last couple of years, as Islam has grown as a
presence in this country, Muslims have tried to write
themselves into the early history of America, in the way
that every immigrant group does to some extent. (Think of
nineteenth century Minnesota Swedes erecting bogus
runestones as proof of Viking settlement.) If we look at a
modern book about Muslims in America, we will read stories
about Moriscos, crypto-Muslims, among the conquistadors, and
we read claims about Islam among African slaves in this
country. There is indeed some sort of Muslim presence, but
it is far thinner than is often claimed. The slavers who
raided Africa and brought captives to the American colonies
deliberately avoided Muslim territories as much as possible.
And colonial society was certainly inhospitable to Muslim
religious practices, the Islam that was brought vanished
quickly, it being difficult to keep up any sort of Muslim
identity. So we have to be suspicious about some claims
that are made about this part of the world. Things were
different in South America, and in Brazil, where there were
Muslim slave rebellions through the nineteenth century.

THE FIRST STRAND: Early 1900s

There were three distinct waves of Muslim immigration. The earliest phase was
a substantial immigration of Muslim traders--merchants, shopkeepers, peddlers--throughout
the United States, and these have left traces in all sorts of odd places. The
oldest known Muslim group for organized prayer in America dates to 1900 in Ross,
North Dakota. Over the first twenty or thirty years of the twentieth century,
little Muslim groups show up around the country, especially a major concentration
around Detroit, where the Ford works provided a major magnet for workers and
traders. The first permanent designated mosque as a mosque in the United States
dates to 1934, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

American Islam is distinctive. These Muslims tend to be from today's Syria
and Lebanon. Thus, it is disproportionately drawn from Islam's Shiite traditions,
and its offshoots, the Druzes and the Alawites, which Sunni Muslims find suspect,
and even doubt their Muslim credentials. Most questionable from a strict Muslim
perspective is the Druze idea of incarnationism, the idea that human beings
can be manifestations of the divine--that God became incarnate as a particular
figure.

By the 1940s, Muslims were quite widespread across the
United States, and by 1952, an organization was established
which a couple years later changed its name to The
Federation of Islamic Associations, which originally had 52
mosques across the United States. It was also then that for
the first time American servicemen were allowed to list
their religion as Muslim. In addition to those 50 FIA
mosques, there were African-American mosques, which
represent an especially interesting part of the story.

African-American Islam emerged in the early part of the
twentieth century, originating on what might be called the
far fringes of Islam. Over the century, it became more
orthodox and mainstream. The first Muslim organization among
black Americans, the Moorish Science Temple (MST), was
founded in New Jersey in 1913 by Noble Drew Ali. It had a
lot of strange ideas, including secret scriptures, very new
age-y ideas, and in fact, when the FBI in the 1940s obtained
a copy of the MST's Holy Quran, it was an adapted version of
a new-age, channeled scripture called the Aquarian Gospel of
Jesus the Christ, adapted to become an Islamic document.
Noble Drew Ali vanished in 1929. The MST was a strange body,
but it introduced the idea of Islam among black Americans,
and brought Islam home as a possible alternative.

NATION OF ISLAM

In 1930, a man named Wallace Ford or Wali Farad appeared in Detroit, who claimed
to be Hawaiian or Polynesian. He created a new religion, the Lost-found Nation
of Islam. This won enormous support in the Detroit area during the 1930s and
was the root of the modern black tradition of Islam. But it was a strange kind
of Islam. Wallace Ford taught a doctrine that appalled Muslims--sheer blasphemy--which
is that he was God. (During the recent sniper shootings in the D.C. area, one
sniper letter to the police seems to be quoting Ford by declaring "I am
God.") Almost certainly, Wallace Ford was a Druz or Alawite from Lebanon,
and thus represented an ancient tradition that went back at least a thousand
years--a stream flowing from Lebanon to Detroit. Ford taught strange doctrines
like incarnationism. He taught a non-Muslim doctrine of massive racial difference--blacks
were the chosen people, and whites evil products of a mad scientist, a genetic
experiment gone wrong. After his disappearance, Ford was followed by Elijah
Mohammed, who was one of the great religious entrepreneurs in modern America.
The Nation of Islam was important because it took these bizarre, heretical ideas
and introduced the presence of Islam into African-American communities. Americans
became familiar with Islam, albeit in this strange form.

By the 1960s, the Nation of Islam was in deep crisis. First, it had a long
tradition of internal violence and civil strife. Also, more and more of its
members were drawn to orthodox Islam. In 1975, when Elijah Muhammad died, his
son Warith Din, "heir of the faith," began a massive move of the Nation
of Islam toward orthodox Islam. Today, the Nation of Islam represents a tiny
part of this much larger body. (The term "Black Muslim," the term
by which the Nation of Islam was originally known, creates confusion between
the Black Muslim movement--the Nation of Islam--and Black Americans who are
Muslim. The vast majority of Black Americans who are Muslim are orthodox, not
NOI followers, an important distinction.)

When talking about Islam, we must recall that the various fragments of Islam
are all Islam, rather than separate creeds. The 150 million Shiite Muslims represent
15 percent of total Muslims worldwide. If the Shiites were a separate religion,
they would be the world's fifth largest in their own right. They are a very
important part of the religion, though much underestimated in the West.

THE THIRD STRAND

In 1965, the Immigration Act was passed. Contrary to expectations, it led
to a huge influx of people from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and it transformed
the nation's population. Islam was one of the great beneficiaries. The estimated
size of the American Muslim population ranges from 2 million to 15 million.
A consensus estimate would be about 4.5 million. Of those, roughly 42 percent
would be African Americans, 25 percent would be people from India and Pakistan,
and about 12 percent would be Arab.

Of course, "Muslim" and "Arab" are not synonymous terms.
The vast majority of Muslims worldwide are not Arab, and in the United States,
75 percent of Arabs are Christian. There is a whole history to be written on
Christian-Arab radicalism in the Middle East in the twentieth century, a phase
which is now passing but has had an impact in this country. Back in the 1970s,
the Palestinians who hijacked airliners had Orthodox Christian chaplains who
would bless the teams going out. Palestinian radical groups operating in this
country, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, are Christian
Arab as well as Muslim.

What are some of the new issues affecting these communities
to date? One is their sheer newness. There has been a
remarkable growth in the number of mosques in religious
communities. In the 1950s, there were, counting African-
American mosques, probably 150. Today, there are about 1250,
most of them set up in the past 20 or 25 years. These
mosques are trying to operate as they would in the Middle
East. For example, they have to import talented religious
experts, importing a hafiz who can recite the whole Quran.
American Islam still doesn't have many who can do this, so
we find American mosques talent-spotting in Egypt and Saudi
Arabia.

What are some of the political issues facing American
Muslims today? One is Islamic schools, which have mushroomed
in the last twenty years. They have attracted controversy
because of the suggestion that they often teach radicalism,
separatism, and terrorism. Local newspapers have observed
the Muslim schools and reported the singing of dangerous
songs and use of subversive materials. The problem is that
the easiest way for a mosque to get such materials is from
the well-funded Islamic foundations and bodies, which are
happy to provide materials, books, free Qurans. The problem
is that the money behind these is often associated with a
very narrow, intolerant kind of Islam, and that brings me
back to the idea of what is Islam.

As an analogy, imagine that back in the 1920s, it turned out
that all the oil in the world was found in Tennessee and it
was entirely run by a few families of fundamental Baptists.
And over the next few years, they made it their mission to
spread the message of Christianity, but it was going to be
their version of Christianity: This is Christianity, accept
no substitute. That's rather what happened in terms of the
enormous wealth of Saudi Arabia and the kind of Islam it
represents. Online, massive amounts of information about
Islam are available from Saudi-funded organizations. In
practice, this means Wahhabi Islam: a narrow, strict,
puritanical Islam that sets itself apart from other equally
authentic kinds of Islam. Like most fundamentalist faiths,
this particular variant is modern, an eighteenth-century
movement. It has no more monopoly on Islamic truth than the
hypothetical Tennessee Baptists would have on authentic
Christians.

This division raises problems for Shiite Muslims in particular. Many Shiite
Islam ideas (shrines, saints, pilgrimages) sound attractive from a Catholic
Christian perspective. Wahhabi Muslims believe these are pagan ideas but Shiism
is nonetheless important worldwide. In Pakistan, for instance, there is a very
strong Shiite influence. Equally vulnerable to Wahhabi attack is the Sufi tradition,
which has produced some of the greatest glories in Islam. This includes the
mysticism, poetry, art, music--concepts that infuriate the Wahhabis.

We can see these religious conflicts erupting on American soil, for instance
in the New York state prison system. Islam is a major presence in American prisons,
and many would say that this is a good thing because the Muslim influence can
encourage people to get their lives together, to get off drink or drugs, to
learn self discipline. In the New York prison system today, about 15 percent
of inmates are Muslim. Recently, there was a lot of criticism of Warith Din
Omar, the senior chaplain of the New York system, after his statements describing
the 9/11 attackers as martyrs and the attacks as something that America had
brought on itself. This provoked a systematic investigation of the chaplains
in the New York system, all of whom were appointed under Omar's auspices, which
investigation found a great deal of extremist, Wahhabi sentiment. For example,
Omar would not minister to Shiite prisoners because he did not view them as
real Muslims. In response, Shiite Muslim groups offered to provide chaplains
who would teach real Islamic tolerance.

Issues concerning Muslim chaplains and the kind of religion
they teach also appear in the armed forces and in
universities. As in the prisons, there can be a lot of
tensions, not just between Islam and U.S. policy, but
between particular kinds of Islam.

Another recent issue has involved charity, one of the five
pillars of Islam. Recently, though, there have been
publicized cases of specific Muslim charities such as the
Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development being
terrorist conduits. Reportedly, some American Muslims now
know that they have an obligation to give to charity, but
they are afraid to give because they don't know what happens
to these gifts. Muslims also complain of a double standard.
Irish Americans have no qualms about giving to groups that
are going to support nationalist causes in Ireland.
Different people from different ethnic groups are quite
happy to give to different causes in their homeland or
wherever they feel a historic link to, so why are Muslims
blamed for supporting Palestinian causes? Their view is, we
are not giving to anti-American causes, we just support our
kith and kin overseas. That is a sensitive topic and leads
Muslims to believe that they are not properly trusted or
acknowledged as patriotic Americans.

There is one analogy from American history: a large
religious group that was regarded as being violent,
brainwashing its children in schools, and using its places
of worship to stockpile weapons to overthrow the government.
It was the Roman Catholic Church in the mid-late nineteenth
century. Catholics, too, were accused of setting their
religion above the state. The charge was that a real
Catholic could not be a real American, though ultimately
those ideas faded in the second and third generations, as
Americanization progressed. Absolutely nothing that has been
said about Muslim schools in the last five years was not
said about Catholic schools a hundred years ago. Then a good
Protestant audience would be regaled about the bloodthirsty
secret oath of the Knights of Columbus to destroy the United
States. This fear of immigrant religions is a potent
American inheritance. In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan had 5
million members in the United States, and it was primarily
an anti-Catholic movement. Without trivializing genuine
fears about Islamist terrorism or subversion, one would hope
that, ultimately, Islam will Americanize, just as
Catholicism Americanized during the twentieth century.

In summary, Islam may not be as strong numerically as many
people may believe, but it is an important presence. We are
moving towards a phase when Americans will have to consider
three religious symbols: the church, the synagogue, and the
mosque.

More Comments:

Yssis Saadi EL -
3/21/2005

Islam & Greeting,

I would like the opportunity to set the record striaight about the Moorish Science Temple. Youmhave miss leading and totally false information.
Please contact me as how we can make a wrong into a right by correcting the article that is posted on this site.

bill rozell -
4/23/2004

The NOI is, in fact, an atheistic flying saucer cult. Only the pilots of the saucers are black ubermenschen, not space aliens. And the Universe is trillions of years old. The Bible is used much more than the Koran in the early writings and teachings of the group, wherein is a coded message to the blacks who are being duped by inferior whites and dazzled by the whites's "tricknology."
Elijah Muhammed and Farrakhan have both continued in this vein.

Jesse Lamovsky -
8/13/2003

I hope Mr. Greenland isn't seriously compairing the decrepit "official religions" in places like Sweden and the U.K. to, say, the theocracy in Iran, or the Taliban movement.

I confess to not knowing much about Cromwell (other than that the Irish hated him, and apparently with good reason). What I do know is that the most destructive, violent revolutions in the history of the West (French; Russian; Nazi German) were anti-clerical to their core. The Spanish Republic was anti-clerical (and why this picking on Franco? How bad could he have been? Spain is now a modern, prosperous, democratic nation and, yes, Franco has something to do with that. Also, Franco's Spain was an open santuary for Jews throughout World War II. Franco never repatriated a single Jewish refugee. His government saved 60,000 Jews from slaughter, and while we're talking about the Holocaust, that should be acknowledged).

Jesse Lamovsky -
8/13/2003

I hope Mr. Greenland isn't seriously compairing the decrepit "official religions" in places like Sweden and the U.K. to, say, the theocracy in Iran, or the Taliban movement.

I confess to not knowing much about Cromwell (other than that the Irish hated him, and apparently with good reason). What I do know is that the most destructive, violent revolutions in the history of the West (French; Russian; Nazi German) were anti-clerical to their core. The Spanish Republic was anti-clerical (and why this picking on Franco? How bad could he have been? Spain is now a modern, prosperous, democratic nation and, yes, Franco has something to do with that. Also, Franco's Spain was an open santuary for Jews throughout World War II. Franco never repatriated a single Jewish refugee. His government saved 60,000 Jews from slaughter, and while we're talking about the Holocaust, that should be acknowledged).

Jesse Lamovsky -
8/13/2003

I can certainly believe that. Malcolm Shabazz realized that fact.

Josh Greenland -
8/12/2003

"Protestant fundamentalist made its peace with separation of Church and State in Europe by 1648 and in the United States by 1776."

I don't know how that's possible. Protestant fundamentalism came into existence in the USA in the 1910s.

If you are trying to say that Protestantism made its peace with separation in Europe by 1648, I seem to remember that Cromwell's religiously righteous, anti-everything-unPuritan government was operating in England after that time, and to this day a number of European countries have "established" Protestant churches.

"The Islamic world, outside of Turkey, is still three hundred and fifty years behind this western trend towards secularization."

I'm not sure how you're measuring that, but I don't think so. Retrograde notions of Christian morality are codified into law pretty much everywhere in "the West," or have been until much more recently that 350 years ago. I would include just about all laws relating to "sexual immorality," and laws that discriminated against women, and I would submit our laws restricting marriage to heterosexual couples. As far as Christian governmental religious bigotry, Czarist Russia had on its books and tried to prosecute a case of alleged Jewish ritual murder in the early 20th century. The most reactionary Christian churches are happy to involve themselves with governments and governmental affairs to the degree they can get away with it. Remember how the Spanish Catholic church loved and supported Franco, how there were Papal States till .. how late, the 1870s? And the Vatican was the first "temporal power" to make a treaty with Nazi Germany. In the United States, religiously conservative Catholics, fundamentalists and Mormons have no qualms about trying to get government to do things THEIR way. So I don't see this great 350 year old wall of separation of church and state in the West, but a ditch that's been breached in many places and is still being fought over. Look at the newsletter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State if you want to read statements being made today by supposedly progressive western Christians against the notion of separation, and their efforts to work with government (especially the Bush administration) to cripple that separation.

"The majority of Islamic peoples do not accept gender equality. This includes the vast majority of Muslims in the United States."

A large number of fundamentalists, Catholics and Mormons don't accept gender equality. I think many Orthodox Jews also don't.

"I do not know what “you” consider “harassing” women,"

"I" didn't use the word "harassing," I wrote "hassling," and I meant Middle Eastern Moslem men actually going up to women on the street and berating them for dressing and grooming themselves in a way these men think is inappropriate. I have heard of this happening in the US from the northeast to as far west as Chicago. This appalls me and would make me angry if I saw it happening in front of me. But most Moslems in this country don't do this.

"I believe Islam does systematically diminish the gender equality of women in the United States and around the globe. In the United States this is against the law. In Islamic nations it is not."

"Around the globe" is nice but the US doesn't control the world and never will. I'm curious to know how you see Islam systematically dimishing the gender inequality of women in the United States, and especially where you see Islam doing it against our laws.

"Some American Muslim organizations have taken a political stand though by criticizing the United States after 9/11 and insinuating that American foreign policy justified the mass murder of thousands. I watched the speeches on CSPAN and was amazed at the religious fervor."

To what degree do you think these sentiments are reflected among American Moslems as a whole? I know that such sentiment exists, especially in the northeast, but I've never heard it myself, and have heard of many US Middle Eastern Moslems condemn the attacks, and in some cases offer their services to government agencies working against the terrorists.

"Those Muslims remaining in the United States will not have the degree of fundamentalist fervor to withstand the other divisive factors portrayed by Madison in Federalist Number 10 to prevent their unified action along fundamentalist lines."

This sentence seems ambiguous to me. Could you rephrase?

"9-11 proves that Muslims will act on their religious beliefs in an attempt to force them on the secular West,"

What, a tiny minority of Moslems? What does this prove about Moslems as a whole? And, were the terrorists trying to force their religious beliefs on us, or just trying to hurt the US and force it to do what it wanted (including get our bases out of Saudi Arabia)?

"just as we attempt to secularize the Islamic world.

Are "we" trying to secularize the "Islamic world"? How?

Dave Thomas -
8/10/2003

Josh,

Protestant fundamentalist made its peace with separation of Church and State in Europe by 1648 and in the United States by 1776. The Islamic world, outside of Turkey, is still three hundred and fifty years behind this western trend towards secularization. If you are attempting to say the Islamic world embraces the separation of Church and State as the West you are incorrect.

The majority of Islamic peoples do not accept gender equality. This includes the vast majority of Muslims in the United States. Of course they do not parade this in public because the American feminist movement would target them immediately. I do not know what “you” consider “harassing” women, but I define it as diminishing the gender equality of women in any way, shape, or form. I believe Islam does systematically diminish the gender equality of women in the United States and around the globe. In the United States this is against the law. In Islamic nations it is not.

The Muslim community in the United States is not a strong political voice because of social realities, not their own choice. They recognize their small numbers. They are well aware of the history and contemporary power of religious and ethnic hatred and violence in this country, the disgusting redneck factor if you will. Some American Muslim organizations have taken a political stand though by criticizing the United States after 9/11 and insinuating that American foreign policy justified the mass murder of thousands. I watched the speeches on CSPAN and was amazed at the religious fervor.

Fundamentalist Muslims in the United States were scared by the changes in American society after 9-11 and are leaving the country to go back to their homelands where the acceptance of theocracy and patriarchy are in tune with the medieval societies.

Those Muslims remaining in the United States will not have the degree of fundamentalist fervor to withstand the other divisive factors portrayed by Madison in Federalist Number 10 to prevent their unified action along fundamentalist lines.

I am not insinuating the Islam is wrong to embrace theocracy and patriarchy. I am claiming that Islam does embrace these tenets though and this puts Islam at odds with western secular society. 9-11 proves that Muslims will act on their religious beliefs in an attempt to force them on the secular West, just as we attempt to secularize the Islamic world.

There is a struggle going on regardless of who you think is right or wrong.

Josh Greenland -
8/10/2003

"Islam, as practically practiced not as written, also fails to recognize gender equality, tolerate other religions, and embrace free speech in the American fashion.

"The religious perspectives of the majority of practising Muslims are at odds with important tenets of American secular society."

One can as accurately make the same statements about Protestant fundamentalism and fundamentalists.

Both religious milieux have a great deal of internal diversity (probably more in the case of Islam, which encompasses more people), and in both you can find commitment to sexual equality, free speech, tolerance of other religions and secularism.

"Does America have to change or does Islam have to embrace a separation from secular affairs. This is the main question."

Are you talking about Moslems in the United States? I've heard of Moslems from the Middle East hassling women here for the way they dress on the street, but my own experience with Moslems here is that they mind their own business and don't seem to involve themselves in the political process, other than to try to defend themselves from defamation, or in a few causes, to push some kind of politics related to foreign countries. I haven't seen Moslems try in a concerted way to affect the domestic politics of the United States yet. I suppose that will occur once there are enough Moslems in the US. Then we'll have a better idea how your question might be answered, or if it's even relevant.

Dave Thomas -
8/9/2003

Islam, as practically practiced not as written, also fails to recognize gender equality, tolerate other religions, and embrace free speech in the American fashion.

The religious perspectives of the majority of practising Muslims are at odds with important tenets of American secular society.

Who is right or wrong is not the issue. The fact there is a divide is evident. Does America have to change or does Islam have to embrace a separation from secular affairs. This is the main question.

Russ Lohse -
8/8/2003

The foundational text of the Moorish Science Temple is called the "Holy Koran," not the Holy Qur'an.

Wallace D. Fard (a/k/a Master Fard Muhammad; pronounced fa-RAHD) did not claim to be a Hawaiian or a Polynesian. He claimed to be the son of a "jet-black" man and a white woman, born in the "Holy City of Mecca." He claimed his biracial ancestry allowed him to move undetected among both blacks and whites. According to FBI reports, he was a mixed-race New Zealander of partial Polynesian descent. On police reports, he listed his race as "white." I have read no suggestion anywhere that Fard was in any way associated with the Druze (who are not considered Muslims), the Alawis, or the country of Lebanon, before Professor Jenkins's unsupported contention that this was "almost certainly" the case.

Although Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammad was, at least at one time, a Nation of Islam member, there is as much evidence to suggest that he was quoting Fard as there is that he was quoting Charles Manson. There is no reason at all to believe, as Jenkins seems to insinuate, that the sniper attacks had anything to do with the teachings of the Nation of Islam -- any more than Manson's murders had to do with the teachings of Christianity.

The term "Black Muslim" was coined by C. Eric Lincoln and seized on by the press to refer to members of the Nation of Islam in the late 1950s. It was never, and is not now, used by members of the Nation to refer to themselves.

Dale Jerome -
8/8/2003

As long as Moslems in the US accept American constitutional provisions, especially the principle of separation of church of state, they do not seem to pose any major problem for America, and may actually be a boon. The difficulty comes in other countries which do not have our traditions of at least trying to keep religion and politics separate. Maybe American Moslems could play a unofficial but helpful role there, since official American foreign policy, tying itself in knots with oxymorons such as "war on terrorism", is of little use under the present regime.

Josh Greenland -
8/8/2003

I've been told that most Moslems don't consider the Nation of Islam to be real Islam.

Jesse Lamovsky -
8/7/2003

Why do people insist on believing that the NOI is a type of Islam, albeit in a "strange form"? The NOI is a pure race-cult dressed in the trappings of Islam. It's as much a version of Islam as the white-supremacist Christian Identity movement is a version of that religion.